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IDS Fellow Anton Simanowitz reflects on a microfinance programme that has made a real difference to Haitian women's lives and which will continue to work there long after the emergency agencies and journalists have moved on.

'As the news came through about the Haiti earthquake, I was immersed in writing an evaluation of a programme for extremely poor women living in rural Haiti. The programme, named Chemin Lavi Miyo (CLM or 'pathway to a better life' in the local Creole) takes lessons from BRAC in Bangladesh and targets women who experience a basic lack of food, shelter and access to health and other services, as well as social isolation in the communities in which they live.

CLM delivers a package of a six month cash-stipend, productive assets, health care and most importantly the close support of a dedicated case-manager. The results are promising, with preliminary analysis showing sustained improvements in assets, food security, children's attendance of school, use of clinics and doctors, and a large reduction in severe malnutrition of children over a 24-month period.

CLM is a project of Fonkoze, Haiti's largest microfinance organisation, a local organisation that now reaches over 60,000 of the poorest women throughout Haiti. Fonkoze is one of the most poverty-focused microfinance organisations in the world, building a portfolio of financial and non-financial services including savings, credit, remittances, education and literacy, based on a solid knowledge of the Haitian context and the needs of its people. Fonkoze has been a partner of IDS for the past three years as part of the work of the Imp-Act Consortium which seeks to improve the effectiveness of microfinance in reducing poverty.

My first reaction to the news of the earthquake was a profound sense of impotence and feeling of irrelevance of my work - based in my comfortable, safe surroundings in the green and gentle Sussex Downs. My initial reaction was, like most people a sense of urgency and need just to get food, water and money to the hundreds of thousands of people who now face a struggle for mere existence. This has given way to thinking about what happens in one month or three when the agencies that have jetted in for the emergency pack up and move on, and the journalists find that Haiti is old news.

How will Haiti rebuild its shattered infrastructure? How will the livelihoods of those women I've met in the rural areas be affected by the economic impact on the country? Who will be there to learn about what is needed, to develop programmes of long-term development assistance that will sustain the small improvements that have been made by so many thousands of women to their lives over the years? I will certainly count Fonkoze amongst the handful of organisations that is in Haiti for the long haul and it is one that I trust to make a real difference in the months and years to come.'

Source: IDS.ac.uk